Flyzone Tiger Moth

I just bought all the foam parts for a Flyzone Tiger Moth.

I plan to stick AS3X gear inside. Horizon has almost no information on the UM Rx's with AS3X and not much on the linear servos either.

Any good suggestions on what to stick inside? The fuse is 26 mm wide. I'm thinking of the spitfire Rx and maybe one of the small AP0x brushless motors that work on 1S. The idea is to have something quiet with a bit of reserve power.

I'd also like to try 100% aileron mixed to the rudder to see if I can get the aileron gyro to correct bank from turbulence. My first assumption is that if they are mixed the rudder will (I hope) affect how much the aileron gyro corrects so they don't get into a pissing contest over who is doing what.

I use a gyro tilted 45% in my GWS Tiger Moth and it handles both bank and yaw correctly. Works very well. I use that plane for video and its a big help.

Okay, that's it. I have time since I have not yet ordered an Rx and all I want is AS3X, 1S and a small, quiet brushless motor.

The Spit receiver is what you want. Note that it's mounted on its side in the Spit which could be an option for you, else it can be reprogammed for horizontal mounting.

I understand it you're making it R/E/T?

The on-board gyros won't care what mixes you have on your radio, they only damped non-input motions in their respective axises; the rudder gyro will take care of any unwanted yawing, the aileron of any unwanted rolling.

I suppose you could hook up the rudder to the aileron servo, the gyro will only correct for rolling motion though, but on a 3 channel plane yaw and roll are pretty much the same thing, should work.

I tried the AR6400 and it's about a millimeter to wide. I'm hoping I can lay the Spit Rx flat but looking at the pictures on the Horizon site it looks about like the AR6400 in width. I'm looking at the space between the servos and the socket between them to judge.

My gyro in the GWS Tiger Moth was rudder only but it is mounted on Velcro so I tried rotating it until I found the orientation where it corrected both yaw and roll in the proper direction. Note, there are four 45 degree orientations and only one is correct for both axis' when I flew it that way with the gain all the way up (at 45 degrees you get 0.707 of the max for each axis) the improvement was very noticeable, especially in rough air. I even got comments on my flying skill.

Anyway, I'm hoping I can get the aileron gyro to help but it's an iffy thing.

I will go poke around and ask questions on the AS3X site and probably the Flyzone Tiger Moth site.

The spitfire/P-40 brick isn't brushless compatible, so you'll need to mix Channel 5 or 6 to the brushless esc.

For AS3X I personally would use a Spitfire P-40 brick, mounted on its side, hooked to the rudder and Elevator (just like a spitfire), and then use a 1.7g servo with a 1.0mm plug to run the ailerons through homemade torque rods.

The spitfire/P-40 brick isn't brushless compatible, so you'll need to mix Channel 5 or 6 to the brushless esc.

For AS3X I personally would use a Spitfire P-40 brick, mounted on its side, hooked to the rudder and Elevator (just like a spitfire), and then use a 1.7g servo with a 1.0mm plug to run the ailerons through homemade torque rods.

I wasn't planning to use ailerons, but it's very tempting. The fuse in the area of the wing is filled and cutting a hole there might compromise the strength of the fuse, but would simplify getting full AS3X response and having ailerons would add to the fun of flying.

The wings have a little dihedral but I can either live with it or remove it. I can also order a second set of wings and fly RET until they arrive.

It is a very nice looking plane. I'm lazy, but I'd love to have a WWII paint job on it. I had a girlfriend whose father was a Spitfire pilot and his initial training was in Tiger Moths. It'd be cool to have two of the planes he flew.

Edit: I've got a blog entry devoted to the stories he told me about his war time experiences.

Thanks UNGN, more to think about. I really don't want to open my Spit. Do you know if there are any pictures of the open fuse and/or the aileron servo on a Spit wing?

It looks like the owner made a lot of foam wedges and jammed the Rx into place. I think I can do the aileron servo and belcrank but it would mean weakening the fuse, which in turn means that I would have to glue on the lower wing to regain the lost strength.

I think I'm going to order the Spit Rx and aileron servo. I will experiment with foam tac hinges on some scrap before I do the ailerons, but I think it's worth the trouble. I still want to try a 1S brushless motor.

Good choice on ordering the Spit aileron servo since for external servos on AS3X you need the SA2030 linear servo, the old kind will apparently burn up in short order.
See if you can get the bellcrank as well, they're not difficult to make but a bit tedious IMO.
If you're not looking for aerobatics I think you can get by with ailerons on the lower wing only, and full span keeps the torque rods short.

As for motor look into posts by Deadbird (aka MicroAces), in his kits I think he uses a 5 gram 3000 kV motor on 1S with good results. It needs a good battery though.

I just ordered parts from Horizon. The sales person was not entirely certain so I got switched to a parts specialist who gave me the exact, full, correct part numbers.

PKZU 2164 Rx
SPMSA2030L Servo
PKZ3623 Bellcrank

I want to try scale ailerons so I will make my own torque rods.

I'm going to check the Spitfire thread on Micro RTF to see if anyone has set up a spit with a 1S brushless motor. Mostly to avoid gear noise but I'm also wondering if I pick a high KV motor if I can run a scale sized prop.

Great pix UNGN. I will be looking at them again when I do the installation.

I just ordered parts from Horizon. The sales person was not entirely certain so I got switched to a parts specialist who gave me the exact, full, correct part numbers.

PKZU 2164 Rx
SPMSA2030L Servo
PKZ3623 Bellcrank

I want to try scale ailerons so I will make my own torque rods.

I'm going to check the Spitfire thread on Micro RTF to see if anyone has set up a spit with a 1S brushless motor. Mostly to avoid gear noise but I'm also wondering if I pick a high KV motor if I can run a scale sized prop.

Great pix UNGN. I will be looking at them again when I do the installation.

I used the Linear/Bell Crank method to add Ailerons to the lower wing of a Kyosho Christen Eagle II

the Servo goes the opposite way on my build because I flipped the Bellcrank upside down to give it a little more aileron throw, since it only had bottom ailerons and it is an aerobatic airframe. A moth could just mount it like the spitfire.

For a stable, light, slow airframe, there is little worry about burning up a conventional servo with AS3X. A 1.7g servo could probably live forever as an aileron servo in a Tigermoth if it was flown in a scale manner.

Thanks, nice pictures. I will probably go for scale ailerons and a longer torque rod. On something this small I'm not worried about flex or flutter as I might be with a larger plane.

I found a 2S AP05 Spitfire installation by Pilatus Mike and I'm going to poke around is the 1S brushless thread where I seem to remember some investigation of the AP02 and 3 with comments about what KV's work best.

Someplace I have that first micro brushless by the guy from India that was sold through Dynamics Unlimited for a four inch prop. Gotta check what scale would be. I think that might be both quiet and possibly just the right power.

Pete

Images

Hmm... Found 3 views and TM had ailerons on lower wing only plus what look like automatic slots on the upper wing. Also, anti-spin strakes ahead of the horizontal stabilizer. I wonder if that was on all models? I'm going with the simple, common scheme already on the model.

I too ordered the parts for the Moth, the previous micros from Flyzone are very, very nice, so far I've assembled the Albatros, the Dr.I and the Nieuport 17 from parts, have SE5a parts as well waiting for a free evening.
I hope they keep them coming!

I'm going to go in another direction with my Moth parts though, the plan is to bash it into a Rumpler C.IV, the dimensions are close enough I think.

Images

The TM is one of my favorite planes so I will try to do a straight version.

I'd love all the rest of the Flyzone planes, especially the SE-5 but I think I'm about out of space. This place is getting to look like the Collier Mansion except it's airplanes stacked to the ceiling rather than old newspapers.